Actor gets very real with burn survivors - he's one, too

Burn survivor, Iraq war veteran and former Dancing With the Stars winner J.R. Martinez compares arms with fellow burn survivor Valentina Serrano, 2, of Compton, during a visit to the UC Irvine Health Regional Burn Center Wednesday afternoon. Martinez is representing the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors, which brings together burn survivors, their families, caregivers, burn care professionals and firefighters to encourage the sharing of stories, support and knowledge of burn recovery. KEVIN SULLIVAN , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

J.R. Martinez still meets with burn victims, and hears their heart-wrenching stories, because he knows first-hand how easy it would be to sever all connections with the outside world. To stay inside the house and not come out.

Martinez, 30, was severely injured in 2003, when the Army infantryman was serving in Iraq. The Humvee he was driving hit an improvised explosive device, and the explosion left Martinez with burns that disfigured his face and required some 30 operations. His story, and his crusade to bring attention to the plight of burn survivors and wounded servicemen, received a national platform in 2011 when he won Season 13 of “Dancing with the Stars” with partner Katrina Smirnoff.

He’s also an actor – currently on the syndicated action-rescue series “SAF3” – and is in demand as a motivational speaker. He continues to stop at burn centers around the country, including the burn intensive care unit at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange earlier this week, because his experiences and words can help people who’ve lived through the unimaginable.

“It is a little bit draining, I will admit that,” he said. “But the reason why I show up is I understand the impact I can have. If I don’t bring it every single day, then I possibly miss an opportunity to save a life. It’s a big responsibility I put on my own shoulders, because I know that if I take the time, if I continue to show people that I’m surviving, I’m living … when they’re on the edge, they’re gonna feel like, ‘I’m gonna pull back form the edge, because this guy did. This guy’s done something. Look at his passion, look how he’s living, look how he’s completely positive.’”

As anyone who’s seen Martinez on TV can attest, he’s relentlessly positive. But he’s not a cheerleader. At UCI’s Regional Burn Center, Martinez met with a group of survivors and their families. One of the people who’d come to see him was Raquel Serrano, a mother from Compton who told a story so agonizing, it’s almost unbearable:

Two years ago, when her daughter Valentina was about 10 months old, Rachel left her in the care of her father at his home. It was early morning, and he began to fill up the tub to give his granddaughter a bath. He put Valentina in, and went into the next room to get the baby soap Rachel had packed for the girl’s visit. “It was less than a minute,” Rachel said.

During that time, somehow the water coming out of the tap turned from tepid to scalding. Valentina, very quickly, burned while she sat in the tub. She was was badly burned from her shoulders to her toes, and was rushed to UCI. She recovered but spent three months in the hospital, and another month in physical therapy.

“She’s amazing,” Rachel said of her daughter, who’s now 2 1/2, “and when people ask me what happened, they’re like, ‘Oh my God,’ and I’m like, ‘Don’t feel bad for her. … I prefer to talk about it, especially in front of her, than to always be like, ‘No, nothing happened,’ or ‘It’s none of your business.’ It’s better that I talk about it and I face it, instead of trying to hide from it, because she should be proud that she survived, and not ashamed. It’s gonna take awhile for her to accept her scars. ... She’s scarred all the way down to her toes. So she’s not gonna want to wear bathing suits at the beach. Kids are cruel. ... So I don’t want her to feel bad for herself, and I feel like that strength should come from me.”

Martinez played with the girl, and she compared her rough arms to his smooth ones. Martinez, encouraging Rachel’s instincts toward openness, said he tries to use his own scars as tools to teach others – not only about his injuries, but about the reality that we’re all human beings.

He told her a story, from when he used to get defensive about his appearance. He was at a store reading the label on a product when he could feel somebody staring at him. He turned and noticed a boy in his teens looking at him with mouth agape. “He doesn’t realize the effect that he’s having, like how he could really kind of send me into a place of regret and denial, and just a horrible thing,” Martinez said.

“So instead of me just running away from it, I said I’m gonna face it. And what I did was, I walked up to him, and I said, ‘Can I help you?’ And he said to me, ‘Whoa. Man, you don’t look normal.’ ... Now, again, that could have been another moment where it could have just sent me back to the closet, and my dark room, and never come out, right? But instead, I faced it again, and I said, ‘You know what’s funny? I was standing over there looking at you, thinking the same exact thing.’ And he was like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you don’t look normal to me.’ And he was like, ‘No, I’m normal, you’re not normal.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m normal, you’re not normal.’ ... And we had this back and forth of who’s normal for like 30 seconds, and he was so confused that he like ran away.

“And I felt happy about that, and I went back to reading the label, and a few, maybe like 10 minutes later, he came back up to me, and he says, ‘Excuse me.’ I turned around and looked at him. I said, ‘Yeah?’ He said, ‘I just want to apologize.’ I said, ‘Listen, man, normal isn’t just one thing. Normal is who you are and what you accept ... and what you say.’”

“Sometimes I’d make jokes about my injury, maybe you’ll feel more comfortable, because this is not something people are used to, they’re not accustomed to this, so if you can make them feel comfortable it helps the process for everybody.”

Dr. Victor C. Joe, director of the burn center, said Martinez is an inspiration because he adds “an immediate credibility” to what he and the medical staff say and do, “because he’s walked that road. I may know how to say things intellectually, but I don’t know what it feels like to go through that. I can tell them about the pain, I can tell them about the complications, about what skin grafts feel like, but I can’t share that experience, and that’s what he can do.”

Martinez also isn’t shy about his views on the care of veterans, many of whom have PTSD and other problems that aren’t as obvious as physical battle wounds.

“I think in the military space, we have to slowly start saying, ‘We acknowledge that you have seen and you have done some things.’ We need to start encouraging these individuals to talk about their issues, and not looking at it as a sign of weakness when they go and talk to a licensed professional,” he said.

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